"Bill was into Navajo beliefs," she said, startling me.
"And?"
"And he was taken to a part of the reservation that has a rep for weird stuff."
"Ridge Star was trying to scare him. That's a good place to do it." I pictured Bill, being hauled out of a pickup in the dark and tied to whatever his captors had put out there. He had to know what was happening. He probably knew the guys who took him out there. Did he think they were going to kill him? Is that what they wanted to do?
"Think about it," Kara continued. "What if Bill was hardcore into Navajo beliefs?"
"All the more reason to try to scare the shit out of him out there. Maybe they just wanted him to give them his documentation and quit Ridge Star and they figured that was the best way to do it."
"Kase, you're not following up on the 'belief' part," Kara said. "When you really, really believe something, chances are you're going to attribute things that happen to you to your beliefs."
My hands tightened on the steering wheel. Was that a part of this puzzle? Chris had said the same thing the day before, about how what you believe can make you see things. "Damn, you sound like Dad. I thought you weren't into all that religious studies academic crap," I teased.
"Whatever. You grow up in it, some of it gets stuck on you," she retorted. "Anyway, think about it. There's Bill out there by himself, tied to a stake or whatever, freaking out, and he sees something."
"Or he thinks he sees something," I corrected, grasping where Kara was going. "But it doesn't matter whether it was real or not." I stared out the windshield at the road, at the asphalt shimmering in the heat. "Because he believed he saw something."
"Exactly. And he's more scared of whatever it was he thought he saw than of the Ridge Star assholes and he busts out of the wash and takes off, freaking out the whole way."
"Of course," I said, half to myself. "Which is why he just went for the main highway. He thought something was chasing him." Something dark and scary, with bad intentions, from the nightmares of Navajo ideology. Something whose sole purpose was to cause harm to humans. But even if Bill was barreling down the road, thinking a skinwalker was after him, wouldn't the sight of a vehicle bearing down on him shake him out of it? For a moment, at least? There's still something else. Something I'm not seeing.
"I wonder--" Kara started. "Okay, let's just go a little further. What if they took Bill out there and tied him up to keep him there, in one place, so that they could do something specifically to scare him?"
"What do you mean?" I glanced over at her then back at the road. "Like, they were going to do something more to scare him?"
"Yeah. Like...I don't know. Dress up in some costume and try to scare him even more."
"That's kind of elaborate, don't you think?" I imagined Bill tied to a stake and Jimmy Surano or somebody coming up out of the wash wearing a couple of ratty coyote skins, making spooky noises. "And kind of lame. I mean, some guy dressed up in a weird outfit is going to scare another guy?"
"Why not?" she shot back, defensive. "Bill's already a believer. They leave him out there for a while to get all worked up. But maybe they didn't go too far. They drove away, then parked on the road to Tom Manyhorses' place and waited a while, then one guy gets out of the car and goes back to the wash with his outfit--"
"And scares the living shit out of Bill." I nodded. It was nuts, but this whole thing had been nuts. "So what happens is Bill breaks the rope or maybe he's been working on getting away since they left and this guy shows up imitating a Navajo witch and does scare him even more and he breaks away and takes off running."
"And the other guy chases him, but Bill thinks he's running for his life, so he's faster."
I chewed my lip again, mulling the image of Bill racing away from the wash. "I don't think even a guy running for his life is going to get too far out there."
"Agreed," Kara said. "He doesn't know the area so he'll stay on the main road. But he's scared out of his mind and they could have underestimated him." She handed me the bottle of water and this time, I took a swig and handed it back.
"So here comes Bill, like a bat out of hell, and he gets past Manyhorses' turn-off and he continues on but there's the bad guys' truck, parked up that road and the guy who scared Bill at the wash alerts the dude in the truck or car or whatever and that's how the truck ended up behind Bill." I decelerated behind a car pulling a camping trailer, chafing a little because I wanted to get home and call Chris and run all this by her. Not because I wanted to continue this investigation as a pseudo-private investigator, but because my analytical streak demanded it, needed some closure. And maybe I wanted her to talk me out of this insane scenario that Kara had helped plant in my skull.
Kara leaned back. "How far to Cuba?"
"Forty miles or so."
"Stop when we get there. I'm going to need to pee."
"Duh. Two glasses of iced tea and a bottle of water will do that to you." I flashed her a grin even as she stuck her tongue out at me.
"Now shut up so I can get some sleep." She adjusted her seat back and crossed her arms, assuming her dozing-in-the-car position. I adjusted the air conditioning and moved my own seat back a bit to give my legs a little more stretch for the drive. The landscape 550 was passing through showcased eroding desert buttes and hoodoo spires, the latter casting eerie evening shadows across the ground.
I adjusted my speed, not wanting to get nailed with a ticket, and thought about Bill's last hours of life, and the circumstances that took him to a darkened wash cloaked in ancient local fears. Did somebody dress up like a skinwalker and try to scare him? And if so, did they seriously think that a Halloween-style prank would put Bill off his investigation into dangerous working conditions at Ridge Star? Somebody felt Bill couldn't be fired, because he'd probably whistle-blow. So maybe they wanted to force him to quit. But even if they did force him to quit, so what? That wouldn't shut him up. Why the hell would a couple of guys set up such an elaborate scenario to scare him?
Around and around I go. Whoever it was had escalated the situation, from threatening calls to a couple of punches to kidnapping Bill and taking him out to the Rez. Why didn't they just tell him if he didn't do what they wanted, they'd go after Tonya? Christ, for all we knew, maybe they did and Bill kept it to himself, so as not to scare her. He might even have told them that if anything happened to her, he would go to the police or the news media. This whole thing could have been a game of cat-and-mouse with Bill and Ridge Star. Brinksmanship, until somebody blinked.
I spent the rest of the way to Cuba thinking about the man Bill was and the father he wasn't and that no matter where people ended up in life, they still had to unpack their pasts to build roads into the future. I thought about River, spending weeks--sometimes months-- in the Montana mountains, even when he wasn't guiding groups of hunters. I wondered if his demons followed him, or if he felt, at least out there when he was alone, that he could control them better. And then I thought about Sage, and how she carried her past with her, in the stubborn self-sufficiency that took her on photographic expeditions all over the world, and in the restless search for a place she could trust, that wouldn't be yanked out from under her feet. And I vowed, in the last ten miles to Cuba, that I'd work my ass off to be that place.
Chapter Nineteen
I SLOWED DOWN on the edge of Cuba, which supported maybe a thousand people within city limits, maybe twice that in the surrounding area. Highway 550 went right through the heart of it, becoming its main street for the few blocks that separated civilization from the surrounding piñon-populated hillsides. Once south of town, 550 would pick up speed on its way to Bernalillo, a sleepy village twenty miles north of Albuquerque that clung to a Spanish past even as the suburbs of Rio Rancho encroached on its back.
I pulled into a Circle K convenience store and parked in front. Kara unbuckled her seat belt. "Want anything?" she asked.
"Maybe some coffee." I got out and followed her inside and while she headed for the bathroo
ms in the back, I went to the coffee pots and poured a medium-sized Styrofoam cup of their "house blend." Three hazelnut creamers later, I went to the counter where a dark-haired heavyset woman rang up my purchase. "Thanks," I said when she handed me my change. She nodded and went back to reading People magazine and I returned to the car and set my cup on the roof. Another seventy miles and we'd be back in Albuquerque. I stretched, thinking about being in my own bed with Sage and little tingles of anticipation danced around my stomach. I just wanted all of this to be over.
I took my phone out of my shorts pocket and called Sage, wanting to know where she was on the drive home. No answer. I hung up without leaving a message, since she'd see that I had called. She was in the middle of driving, or she didn't hear her phone ring because she had the music too loud. I drummed my fingers on the roof of the car, not liking where my thoughts were going. Sage was a careful driver, and when she was in the car, the music was barely loud enough to make out the beat. I called again. Still no answer. This time I left a message, trying not to sound too worried. What the hell? She might have her phone's ringer off and just forgot to turn it on. We'd all done that. So why was I so uneasy?
"All right," Kara said as she exited the store. "Running on empty, thank God. Let's blow this pop stand."
I reached for my coffee and opened the driver's side door.
"Um, Kase?"
I looked across the roof of the car at Kara. "What?"
"There's a little problem." Kara pointed toward the right rear of the car.
Now what? I walked around the back to her side. "Oh, hell, no. Shit."
"I'm assuming you have a spare," Kara commented.
"Shit," I said again, glaring at the flat right rear tire. "What the hell? It felt fine driving here." Will nothing go right on this goddamn trip?
"Maybe you picked up a nail or something a few miles back and didn't notice anything right away because you pulled in here."
"I don't fucking believe this," I muttered as I opened the car's back door. I kept swearing as I hauled the spare out of its compartment and set it down on the ground next to the flat tire. "Can I just say that this trip has kind of sucked in some ways?" At least I had a full-sized spare. I wouldn't have to worry about driving forty-five miles an hour back to Albuquerque on a donut-sized tire.
"Sure. I won't argue."
"Thanks," I said sarcastically as I returned to the back and opened another compartment, from which I took the tire iron and the jack. I used the flat end of the tire iron to pry the hubcap off the flat tire, setting it aside to hold the lug nuts once I had them off. Five minutes later, I was swearing again and resisting a powerful urge to kick the tire and re-injure my foot.
Kara took a try at the nuts, but had as much luck as I did. They remained unbudged. "Damn," she said, stepping back.
"I hate this," I announced as I ran both hands through my hair. "They're probably machine-tightened." Which means I'd have to be Supergirl to get them off.
"Okay, so let's just call Sage and River and tell them what's up and when they get here, River can use his manly-man muscles."
I nodded, chafing that I'd need my sister's brother to get my damn tire changed. I dialed Sage's cell, but she didn't pick up. "Fuck," I said before I got bumped to voicemail. I left a brief message about the latest developments and told her to call me or stop at the Circle K in Cuba on her way home. Something wasn't right about that. Sage knew I was worried about her, and about the drive home. Why wouldn't she be answering? The clock on my phone registered eight-fifteen. If she'd left Farmington soon after Kara and I did, she should be near Cuba by now. Where the hell are they?
"They're on their way and out of phone range," Kara said, answering my unspoken question. "So we'll just hang out and keep trying to change the tire and they'll be along soon."
I managed a smile, since I hadn't thought about the lack of cell phone towers out here. That was it. They were just out of range. "Yeah. Let me drink some more coffee. Maybe the caffeine will give me super powers."
"Can't hurt." Kara handed me my cup. "I'll call Triple A, see what they say."
I sipped my coffee as Kara did just that. After about ten minutes, she put her hand over the phone's mouthpiece, irritated. "They can send somebody from Santa Fe but it'll be another two hours. I think I'll say no and we'll wait for Sage and River."
"That might be the best bet, since we can always go home with them and come and get the damn car later." Fucking hell.
"Okay." She returned to the phone call and thanked the operator then hung up. "Maybe we'll get lucky and somebody will show up before they do."
"Unless they're from a planet with a red sun, I think we're screwed."
"Pessimist."
"Mary Sunshine."
She flipped me off and set her phone on the dashboard. I turned and stared at the main street, hoping that Sage's headlights would round the slight curve in just a few minutes and everything would be all right and she'd tease me for worrying.
Thirty minutes later, Kara and I were still taking turns at the tire because nobody who could help had stopped at the Circle K, and Sage hadn't called nor had she and River come through town. Anxiety sat in my gut like a big, cold rock. Something wasn't right. I'd dialed River's cell phone a few times but got bumped immediately to voicemail, which meant his phone was turned off. I paced the Circle K parking lot for the hundredth time, frustrated and feeling helpless. The lights above the gas pumps buzzed in the night quiet and bunches of insects hovered around them, going about their business, not a care in the world except bouncing against a light bulb.
I had just ended up in front of the store near the payphone when a lowrider in various stages of repainting slowed at the turnoff into the parking lot and its driver pulled up in the parking space next to the passenger side of my car, where Kara was sitting with the door open. The lowrider vibrated with a heavy bass backbeat for a few seconds and then the music stopped and the driver opened the door and got out. He wore dark sunglasses and he'd tied a black bandanna around his head. It sat low on his forehead, almost touching the top of his shades. His goatee, white muscle-cut undershirt, and baggy gray trousers made him look like a throwback to the 1970s-era Chicano movement. Tattoos covered both arms, mixtures of gothic gangster writing, snakes, skulls, and pin-up girls. I saw a large cross on his inner right forearm and I guessed La Virgen was inked on his back.
"Hi," Kara said, smiling at him.
"Hey," I offered, trying to keep our options open. The guy was driving a lowrider that was in the throes of transition, given its primer coats. He was probably doing it himself, which meant he knew a little something about cars. Maybe he was feeling friendly toward a couple of strange gringas in a Circle K parking lot.
He glanced over at me then looked at Kara for a moment and I moved closer to my car. He then nodded at her and turned his head toward the spare tire resting on the pavement next to my tire iron. "You need some help?" he said in the sing-song accent of northern New Mexico.
"We do," Kara said, in a tone of voice I was sure got her dates from anybody she used it on.
He turned back to the lowrider and said something to its interior and the passenger door opened and another throwback to the Chicano movement emerged. He pushed his seat forward and another guy climbed out from the back seat. All were authentic visions of La Raza, tattooed with cholo and Brown Pride images on their arms and probably all over their backs and chests. The shortest guy--the one who had been in the back seat--had a beautiful grayand-black image of a smiling young man who looked to be in his twenties tatted on his right bicep. The letters "R.I.P." and the name "Diego" were etched in gothic script under the portrait.
The three guys went to my flat tire and studied it, offering comments about what might have flattened the tire, its gauge, and what PSI it might take. The driver was the only one wearing sunglasses, and he took them off as he bent down and examined the lug nuts. One of the guys picked up my tire iron and gave it a go at one of the lug nut
s, visibly straining. The nut didn't move.
"Damn," the driver said, echoing Kara as he watched his friend. He straightened and looked at us. "That's some job you got done there," he said, a smile on his lips.
"And yes, we're pissed about it," she said, smiling back.
"Ricky, pop the trunk," the driver said over his left shoulder. The man with the Diego tattoo who'd tried to loosen the nuts snapped to attention and brushed past the driver to reach into the lowrider, down near the driver's seat. The other guy lifted the trunk's lid and rummaged around in it. He pulled out a black plastic case and set it next to my tire.
"Lemme get the extension cord," the driver said to Kara and he went into the store where I saw him through the glass front doors, chatting to the clerk behind the counter. She was laughing and left the counter to go to what I surmised was a back storage area. I turned my attention to Kara, who was talking to Ricky.
"Probably a nail," he was saying. "Hit it just right to empty it that fast. Where you going?"
"Back to Albuquerque," Kara answered. "My sister lives there." She gestured toward me and I smiled and nodded at our impromptu saviors. Ricky and the other guy nodded back.
"I got a cousin there," Ricky continued. "Owns Martinez Body Shop off Gibson. You ever need any work done like that, he's the best."
"Thanks. I'll pass that along." Kara grinned and Ricky smiled back. I was sure he was about to ask Kara to marry him when Driver opened the door of the Circle K. He carried an orange utility-style extension cord that he plugged into a socket near the payphone. The man who'd taken the black plastic case out of the trunk of the car opened it and took out what looked like a power drill but I knew was an impact wrench. I was never so happy to see one as I was at that moment at the Circle K in Cuba. Thank God for guys who work on their own cars. I got over my issue with having to ask a guy for help and moved so Driver could get past me and hand Wrench Man the end of the cord. Maybe next time Danica Patrick would be the one to stop and help. Wrench Man unwound the tool's cord and plugged it in. He attached something to the barrel of it and placed it over the lug nut closest to the tire's valve and pressed the trigger. Seconds later he pulled the wrench away and the lug nut fell to the ground.
The Ties That Bind Page 25
